What I Learned (and Accomplished) in May 2020

Yes, I know. There are still two more days in May. But we'll be busy with the Saturday Six and Shafferland Shuffle, so today I will share some fun things I learned this past month and look back over my goals for May to see how I did!

First...what I learned.

1. We should not be trusted to pick out gray paint. Ever. 

People. It shouldn't be hard. It just shouldn't. It's gray paint. GRAY PAINT!!! How can this be impossible? And yet it was. Whether or not blame should be placed here, I choose to place blame on selecting paint during a quarantine. Ryan and I got online and looked at paint chips, which were nowhere NEAR the colors on our screens when brushed on our walls. Ryan FaceTimed me from the store to show me paper paint chips which also were nowhere NEAR the color that appeared on our wall. Over the course of three rooms, we had perfect grays turn the following colors: green, blue, perwinkle, purple, and almost navy. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. So we have the "ambidextrous" color in the guest room that was supposed to be gray but looks more like a cross between a robin egg and sage, and we have the gray in our living room that is most decidedly a baby blue. That led to repainting our kitchen a gray that is most decidedly a darker blue. If you need gray, don't call us. We will fail you thoroughly.

2. People were not as eager to reenter society as I expected.

This one really surprised me. As everything began to lock down in March, I read so many posts of people who ranged from sad to flat out angry about the restrictions. They just wanted to get out! They wanted to shop and get a haircut and go to church. And yet as things opened up here in Indiana throughout May, I started hearing some of those same people say they weren't ready to try society just yet. They decided to stick with online church, and another few centimeters of gray roots wouldn't kill them. I have no judgment either way, but I was surprised that so many who had been so vocal about getting out ended up staying in!

3. You can juice a lemon by poking a hole in the end of it.

Ryan learned this one on Tik Tok, which may be THE strangest sentence I have ever typed in my life. He is not a social media guy at all, but he does like watching the funny videos on there. Anyway! He found this hack (which we may be the last people on earth to learn) for juicing a lemon without cutting it. Did you know you could do this?

4. Ryan never ceases to amaze me with his party planning skills - even in a pandemic. 

I didn't think he could top my 40th birthday, but he sure did a great job with his pandemic birthday party! If you're new here and don't know, Ryan threw me a surprise party when I turned 40 - and about 100 people came! It was a Beauty and the Beast themed party, complete with Belle and a photographer and lots of cake AND forty roses. (And much more.) I loved it so much! This year he sent me lunch delivery (since he had to work and restaurants weren't open for dine-in) and then cooked FROM SCRATCH an entire dinner, complete with chocolate cake to match my Anne of Green Gables themed birthday party. He decorated our guest room for the party and watched the entire 3 hour movie with me - and liked it! It was so much fun!

5. It takes an extraordinary amount of work for a large church to reopen according to regulations.

Pandemics really throw life for a loop; I think we can all agree on that. But I had an amazing appreciation for the amount of time that goes into figuring out all the many, many pieces and parts of trying to safely reopen a large church. We spent over five hours in a staff meeting talking through all the details of how and where to seat people, how to clean effectively, and how to keep everyone as safe as we could. It was exhausting, and I was just taking notes! I wasn't the brains behind the operation! I am sure there are similar conversations at every single type of establishment. You all are amazing for thinking through everything from so many angles!

6. The really cool panels on the back of our church platform stage are really just styrofoam. 

I went back to work in the office this week, and one day I had to walk across our sanctuary platform. I passed by the large panels I see behind the singers and pastor every week. I was positive they were some sort of fabric screen...until I saw them up close. Nope! Giant pieces of styrofoam. BLEW MY MIND. I mentioned it to one of the staff pastors, and he sent me this article to explain how it works. (This article isn't about our church.) Wow! Who knew???

7. Kind makes mini bars!

When I worked at WBCL, Lynne introduced me to Kind Bars. They were one of her favorite snacks, and she got me so hooked on them! I discovered in the break room at work this week that Kind makes MINI bars! Kind of like a fun size candy bar. I had no idea! Super cute!


So that's what I learned in May! Now...how did I do on my goals?

1. Finish our next round of home improvement projects.

Almost. We did fully finish the guest room, and I love how it looks. (We even had a staycation in there a couple of nights during May!) We also finished the board and batten project in the entry - and it looks amazing. It was always meant to be that way, I'm pretty sure. We painted the living room (and then the kitchen, thanks to the aforementioned issues with gray paint) but we didn't get the one living room wall done. The supplies weren't available, so we were stuck.

2. Plant flowers outside.

DONE!!!! Our trip to Lowe's to purchase them was my first trip to a store after quarantine. We had to let them hang out in the garage for a few days, thanks to a quick reprise of winter, but we finally were able to plant them the week of my birthday! They are starting to fill out and bloom and look so lovely. It makes me so happy to come home from our evening walks and see all the pretty blooms! Bonus: I planted my first tomato plants of life, too! Two of them!

3. Soldier on with the blog archiving.
I indeed soldiered...and even better than the finished product reflects, because due to a computer crash, I lost two and a half months of what I'd saved and had to redo them. I was still able to meet my goal of archiving a full year, but it would been an additional two and a half months if I hadn't had that setback!

4. Plan (with hope) details for a tiny getaway.
Well, we have decided to be very unShafferlike about this getaway. The area we're visiting has different restrictions from where we live, and we're finding them to be less predictable and far less planned-out-in-advance than we're used to living in. The getaway itself is on, but the planning is off. It will surprise us all what we're able to accomplish! We will just see what's open and participate where we can.

5. Prep a talk for Mother's Day.

Done! It was so much fun! I was able to share with one of the churches I used to attend - via Zoom! I wrote about it here, if you want to read more, but I really enjoyed the chance to do this! Creative and fun on the part of the church, I thought.

6. Write something suitable for submission.

Done! I haven't submitted it yet, but I did enjoy a little proper writing! I had Bibles stacked up for study and everything! I also shared a couple of written pieces with my parents' church. (They're not set up for online church so they're "meeting" each week by mailing out the materials for church and then everyone reads them at church time. Mom asked if I could share some of my writing for it, and I did!)

So how about you? Did you learn or accomplish anything exciting in May?